Truly Madly Deeply

Chapter Thirty Two

Author's Note:

Ready for the drama? okay, here goes:

“I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

Isabella sat on the edge of the road, dangling her legs and flailing them around.

"So, what do you call this place?" she asked him, looking at the setting sun that tainted the evening sky with a lovely twilight.

"It's kind of like my hideaway. I found this place last year by accident. I had lost directions to town and somehow ended up here. I've been coming here ever since" he explained as he leaned on the hood of his beautiful car.

He lit a cigarette and took a long drag as he watched Isabella pluck a tiny daisy from the greenery at the edge of the road.

Their school was in the countryside and even when you visited the town, you still felt like you were near forrests and large trees.

"Do you come here alone?" Isabella asked as she played with the daisy before she placed it into one of the button holes of her jacket.

Zayn took the last drag out of his cigarette before he joined Bella. Dangling his long legs, he draped one over hers, making her laugh.He then remembered her question and scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Yes, I always come alone. You're the first person I've ever brought up here." he explained as he played with the tiny daisy in her jacket. She smiled at him as he looked up into her eyes.

"Well I'm honored to be the first one" she giggled before she rested her head on his shoulder. After a while of Zayn playing with her hair, and her humming to some made up tune, she snapped her head up.

"Hey, look a rabbit!" she pointed at a furry brown ball of fuzz that scampered off into some bushes. She turned to Zayn with huge, pleading eyes.

"Zayn can I pretty please with sugar on top look for that rabbit?" she asked, batting her eyelashes and pouting, giving him her best puppy dog eyes. Zayn laughed lightly before he nodded.

"Okay you go get a head start and I'll catch up. Go on before the rabbit is gone forever!" Zayn exaggerated as he pushed her off his lap. She huffed but skipped off into the forrest.

True to his word, Zayn got up to follow her before he heard Bella's phone ringing. He turned around and found her iPhone vibrating on the hood of his car.

He cleared his throat and ran his long, slender fingers through his raven quiff, contemplating whether he should answer it or not.

He leaned over the phone and checked the caller ID. The word "Dad" flashed across the screen, as the phone continued vibrating like crazy.

What the hell. 

Zayn Malik grasped Isabella's phone in his large tan hands before he carefully slid his finger across the screen and unlocked it, automatically answering the call.

"Bella?" A deep, masculine voice answered, it clearly belonged to a middle aged man and surprise was laced in his tone.

"Isabella?" the man who Zayn now knew as her father repeated, a thick British accent tainted his voice.Zayn cleared his voice before he opened his mouth to speak.

"Oh no Sir. I'm Zayn... Zayn Malik. I-" Zayn was about to explain how he and Isabella were classmates but he was interrupted by a confused sounding father.

"Oh I suppose I dialed the wrong number" he mumbled quietly, more to himself than to Zayn.

"Nonono, Sir. You have the right number. This is Isabella's phone" Zayn tried to explain. He wasn't really an expert in making a good impression on girls' parents.

In fact, almost every parent that met Zayn more or less decided that their daughter should stop seeing him. But, he was going to make an effort with Bella's father because she was more than worth it.

"Excuse me young man, but might I ask what you're doing answering my daughter's phone" Isabella's father inquired, sounding annoyed and confused which was never a good combination.

Zayn's palms began to sweat as he searched his brain for words he knew would calm this man down.

"Zayn?" Isabella's soft voice spoke from behind him, causing him to spin around and face her. Her gaze focused on the phone... her phone that he was holding up against his ear.

His face was flushed and he looked agonized. She only knew one person who had that affect on people and that was her father, famous business man, Carlton Somers. 

Isabella bit the inside of her cheek as she moved closer to Zayn. She could hear his heavy breaths leaving his perfect mouth.

"Young man, you better answer me right this moment!" Her father's voice boomed from her phone. She inhaled deeply, holding out her hand for her phone.

Zayn, frightened and never having been put in this situation before, complied. He quickly peeled the iPhone from his ear and swallowed, leaning on the hood of his car to support his wobbly legs.

Isabella took a deep breath before she pressed the phone to her hear, preparing herself for her father's fury and wrath.

"Hi dad. Long time, huh?" she said with an emotionless expression. She paced around the limited area as she waited for her father's response.

"Isabella... Who was that boy... from before. The one who answered your phone, who was he?" her father asked, clearly annoyed and displeased by the fact that some guy had answered his only daughter's phone.

"If you have nothing more to tell me then I'm going to hang up" Isabella said coldly, her eyes turning an emotionless silver as they glimmered in the moonlight.

Zayn snapped his head up upon hearing the tone she used when adressing her father. Isabella seemed like the perfect, obdient daughter. Hearing her clipped and bored tone when she spoke to her dad, made him furrow his brow in confusion.

"N-No. Don't hang up, Bella. Please don't. I haven't talked to you in over a month. I wanted to apologize for the way I acted before..." his voice trailed off as he remembered the last time he had seen his poor daughter.

"Before you humiliated me in front of everyone? Before you shipped me off to boarding school because you were the one who felt betrayed? Do you have any idea how that made me feel? Do you understand how messed up my life has been ever since you disclaimed me as your daughter? Like it wasn't enough being heart broken, you had to push me away, too."

Tears were welling up in her eyes and for the first moment since she answered the phone, her bored and casual expression broke.

She was vunrable and full of heaps of raw emotion. Zayn faught the urge to envelope her into a huge hug and kiss her tears away.

He could feel tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he witenessed the first girl he ever loved crumble into a million pieces by a single phone call. She was breaking even more than she was already broken.

Isabella's father was silent on the other end of the phone, he was clutcing the house phone tightly against his ear so hard it hurt.

He hadn't spoken to his only daughter since that fateful night and he never even asked for her side of the story because he was too concerned with his own career and business.

He lost the one thing that meant to him the most. His own daughter was slipping through his fingers.

"Isabella, I--" his voice broke as he felt warm tears trickle down his pale cheeks. He heard his poor daughter sniffle and sob on the other side.

"Isabella, I'm so sorry" he finally managed to say. That seemed to make her cry even more as she sobbed even harder.

"I wish that were enough, dad" she spoke softly, her voice barely a whisper before she hung up.